A. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a laminating body for manufacturing laminate products by laminating a foil onto a substrate, and to a method for manufacturing such a laminating body and a method for manufacturing a laminate product by means of the laminating body.
B. Related Art
Relevant laminate products in the present case are primarily value documents, identity and identification documents, chip cards or other card-shaped data carriers and value carriers or the like. The substrate can consist here of an almost arbitrary suitable material, e.g. of paper, plastic or the like.
It is known to provide a pressure area of laminating bodies employed upon lamination with a structure in the form of depressions by milling, etching or engraving, said structure being embossed into the laminated-on foil upon lamination and being perceptible in the resulting laminate product. Such embossings can serve e.g. as security features of the relevant value documents or data carrier and, as such, represent identifying information, hard-to-forge embossed patterns or the like.
The manufacturing of structured laminating bodies according to the specifications of a laminate product manufacturer by milling, etching or engraving requires elaborate production equipment and production steps, which must normally be carried out by a manufacturer of the laminating body within the framework of the production process. This not only causes high costs, but also results in relatively long production times and delivery times, which leads to a lack of flexibility and low reaction times for the laminate product manufacturer, in particular in the case of laminate products to be manufactured urgently. This method is likewise disadvantageous when only small batches of laminate products are to be manufactured, because this requires a frequent change of the laminating body solely due to changed embossed structures.
Therefore, it is the object of the present invention to optimize the structuring of a laminating body so as to avoid the disadvantages of the prior art.